Competency partners

Demonstrate your proven expertise in delivering quality solutions in a specialized area of business. Microsoft competencies are designed to meet your customers’ needs and be recognizable to prospective ones. Join the elite tier of Microsoft Partners and stand out from your peers.

In an app-driven economy, partners who build great software solutions for their customers create highly differentiated value. Help customers to digitally transform by leveraging Microsoft technologies to build web and mobile apps for consumers or business—or help modernize their existing apps and put them in the cloud on Azure. With the Application Development competency, partners can highlight their expertise in providing development solutions on a comprehensive and enterprise-proven platform, as well as expanded offerings on a hybrid cloud platform.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Application integration allows organizations to connect applications across the enterprise, accelerate time to market, and increase productivity. Enable API-centric integration strategies, orchestrate business-process execution across applications and SaaS, and build reliable cloud-messaging solutions. Whether their applications run in the cloud or on-premises, customers have the flexibility to seamlessly connect applications, data, and process anywhere.

The Application Integration competency recognizes partners who integrate unique applications and solutions into various products across the Microsoft ecosystem and demonstrate expertise in a hybrid integration platform.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

DevOps partners are experts in helping organizations accelerate innovation with a modern application development lifecycle approach to deliver great solutions on-premises and in the cloud. The opportunity to manage the process, people, and technology behind great apps helps get world-class applications into user’s hands faster and creates a unique value for your customers.

The DevOps competency recognizes partner expertise in helping organizations define, build, manage, and continuously release great software on-premises and in the cloud by leveraging the powerful DevOps and application lifecycle management features of the Microsoft development platform.

Engage with Microsoft as an ISV

IDC forecasts that worldwide public IT cloud services revenue (i.e., SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) will reach USD141.2 billion by 2019, a 19.4 percent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR): almost six times the rate of overall IT spending growth. SaaS still makes up the majority of spending, though PaaS and IaaS are expected to grow at almost twice the rate of SaaS over the next five years.

With the Cloud Platform competency, you can help customers modernize their infrastructure, migrate applications and data to the cloud, and build analytics solutions on data platforms in the cloud. You can also deliver services and build products using SaaS and PaaS solutions available on Azure Marketplace. In addition, Cloud Platform competency enables hosting and managed services partners those manage their customers infrastructure and offer differentiated managed services to customers.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

With the Datacenter competency, you can differentiate yourself as a provider of Private Cloud, Management, and Virtualization Deployment service provider. Be known for transforming datacenters into flexible, scalable, and cost-effective solutions.

According to IDC, customers are increasingly investing in hybrid cloud solutions which provide agile, scalable, and on-demand infrastructure. By 2018, 80 percent of organizations will have a commitment to hybrid architecture. Microsoft has a comprehensive portfolio of products (including infrastructure, applications, management and security) across the datacenter and cloud. With your datacenter and cloud capabilities, you can offer hybrid and differentiated offerings to your customers.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

With the Data Analytics competency, you can differentiate as a specialist in business intelligence, big data, or advanced analytics, and help customers turn their data into actionable insights. Based on last 10 years’ Gartner Top 10 CIO Business and Technology Priorities report, Business Intelligence and Analytics is consistently rated as top technology investment categories by CIOs.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Investments in data platforms, especially in Big Data Infrastructure, will continue to grow due to increased adoption of IoT. According to IDC, Big Data and business analytics market will grow to USD203 billion by 2020, double the USD112 billion in 2015. More than 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies have the Microsoft cloud, which offers companies a fully integrated stack for any kind of data from on-premises, hybrid, or fully in the cloud. Its open cloud platform supports a wide variety of data management systems, including on-premises, cloud, relational DB, and a host of other options, such as third-party Hadoop solutions.

With the Data Platform competency, you can differentiate yourself as a specialist in SQL database, and big data for on-premises and hybrid environments. You can advise customers on their business needs, and architect, develop, and administer data platforms using a powerful, secure, and industry-recognized big data and analytics platform from Microsoft. This platform includes operational database management, data warehousing, and one of the fastest in-memory technologies: Redis Cache. With your help, your customers will be able to innovate, compete, and capture value by making data-driven decisions from insights extracted from data stored on a data platform.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Demonstrate your expertise as a premier Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner with the Cloud Business Applications competency. Distinguish your organization as a leader in delivering modern enterprise and business-ready apps and services that transform our customers' business processes. Qualify for additional benefits and resources to help meet your business needs and become eligible for priority Microsoft Referrals placement.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Dynamics 365 delivers the full spectrum of customer-engagement activities through five individual apps: Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation, and Marketing. These apps work seamlessly together to provide intelligent cloud services that offer personalized business processes.

The Cloud Customer Relationship Management competency recognizes partners who differentiate themselves as premiere industry providers of Dynamics 365 that deliver modern, intelligent experiences and services that connect all the data across an organization to help their customers make better, faster decisions and achieve optimal outcomes.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Dynamics Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions help customers make data-driven decisions with a complete set of tools that provide global visibility, scalability, and digital intelligence. The Dynamics ERP line of products allows organizations to anticipate and manage business needs with more intelligent processes and predictive guidance.

The ERP competency recognizes partners that develop and deploy Microsoft Dynamics solutions for customers' enterprise resource planning needs. The partners transform business by connecting people and processes, and making management and operations easier.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

GDPR and compliance are top concerns for enterprise customers all over the world. Partners who earn the Enterprise Mobility Management competency can stand out as expert in powerful, secure mobility management solutions for large businesses.

With IT Security spend predicted to reach USD170 billion worldwide by 2020, customers are looking for partners with the necessary expertise to implement technology to help them address current and emerging security threats and to meet compliance requirements.

Windows 10, as the most secure Microsoft OS ever, is seeing great momentum with customers from SMB to large enterprises, and is on track to have over a billion users. One of the cornerstones of the Secure Product Enterprise, Windows 10 plays a key role in helping customers meet the security challenges they face today. Partners with the Windows and Devices competency can promote themselves to as expert in helping customers benefit from the advanced security options only available in Windows 10.

In addition, the Windows and Devices competency enables our device builders, installers and sellers to showcase their specialization in providing advice and services to help customers make the most of their Windows 10 hardware investments.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Office 365 is the most secure cloud productivity solution with the most complete set of commercial-grade productivity offerings on the market today. With over 100 million monthly active Commercial users, Office 365 technologies span all productivity categories including Authoring, Mail, Integrated Teamwork, Social, Site and Content Management, Chat, Meeting and Voice and Analytics.

The Cloud Productivity competency enables partners the ability to demonstrate their technical capability in delivering Office 365 solutions across multiple or single productivity practice areas under Microsoft’s largest commercial cloud business.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

SMB customers continue to become more and more digital every day as a means to better serve their customers and lower costs. SMB customers are looking for trusted advisors who can help them with their move to the cloud.

The Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency is ideal for partners who provide cloud solutions to SMB customers across a number of Microsoft cloud services. Partners who provide cloud solutions and services on Microsoft 365, Azure, Enterprise Mobility and Security, Power BI, and Dynamics 365 Business Central can qualify for the competency.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

SharePoint empowers individuals and teams to intelligently discover, share, and collaborate on content from anywhere and on any device, on-premises or in the cloud, with Office 365 integration. With more than 200,000 organizations using SharePoint today and over 1 million developers that make up a USD10 billon solutions ecosystem, partners have multiple ways to build practice areas around SharePoint with its extensible design model.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Skype for Business and Teams offer a comprehensive number of solutions and features that build on an enterprise-ready, unified communications platform enabling solutions such as unified chat and video meetings for today's teams. Build your Skype for Business or Teams practice and capitalize on the unique position of Microsoft in the market as a complete unified communications provider.

As a Communications competency partner, you can demonstrate your expertise in delivering and building solutions in both hybrid and cloud environments by taking advantage of the many features Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business have to offer.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

The need for effective collaboration is critical in today’s environment, which now sees employees working on twice the number of teams they did five years ago. Partners can build a collaboration practice addressing today’s collaboration needs using Exchange and Exchange Online with its ability to integrate with key technologies such as Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive for Business in both on-premises and in-the-cloud environments.

Partners who earn the Messaging competency demonstrate their technical capability with the Exchange and Exchange Online products in the delivery of email and collaboration solutions across a number of experiences, including phone, tablets, desktop, and the web.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

The Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solution provides the platform necessary for organizations to manage their strategic projects by providing project management, collaboration and portfolio management capabilities. With the latest release of the Project Family, the proven capabilities of Project Server are available as Project Online, a cloud service that offers organizations of all types and sizes increased agility with a smaller IT footprint. Project Online works with the SharePoint Online platform and enjoys the business benefits of Office 365, which modernizes productivity infrastructure without any compromise.

As a PPM competency partner, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your technical expertise in PPM industry solutions such as Financial Services, Professional Services, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Retail, Public Sector, and much more.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

In an app-driven economy, partners who build great software solutions for their customers create highly differentiated value. Help customers to digitally transform by leveraging Microsoft technologies to build web and mobile apps for consumers or business—or help modernize their existing apps and put them in the cloud on Azure. With the Application Development competency, partners can highlight their expertise in providing development solutions on a comprehensive and enterprise-proven platform, as well as expanded offerings on a hybrid cloud platform.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Application integration allows organizations to connect applications across the enterprise, accelerate time to market, and increase productivity. Enable API-centric integration strategies, orchestrate business-process execution across applications and SaaS, and build reliable cloud-messaging solutions. Whether their applications run in the cloud or on-premises, customers have the flexibility to seamlessly connect applications, data, and process anywhere.

The Application Integration competency recognizes partners who integrate unique applications and solutions into various products across the Microsoft ecosystem and demonstrate expertise in a hybrid integration platform.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

DevOps partners are experts in helping organizations accelerate innovation with a modern application development lifecycle approach to deliver great solutions on-premises and in the cloud. The opportunity to manage the process, people, and technology behind great apps helps get world-class applications into user’s hands faster and creates a unique value for your customers.

The DevOps competency recognizes partner expertise in helping organizations define, build, manage, and continuously release great software on-premises and in the cloud by leveraging the powerful DevOps and application lifecycle management features of the Microsoft development platform.

Engage with Microsoft as an ISV

IDC forecasts that worldwide public IT cloud services revenue (i.e., SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) will reach USD141.2 billion by 2019, a 19.4 percent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR): almost six times the rate of overall IT spending growth. SaaS still makes up the majority of spending, though PaaS and IaaS are expected to grow at almost twice the rate of SaaS over the next five years.

With the Cloud Platform competency, you can help customers modernize their infrastructure, migrate applications and data to the cloud, and build analytics solutions on data platforms in the cloud. You can also deliver services and build products using SaaS and PaaS solutions available on Azure Marketplace. In addition, Cloud Platform competency enables hosting and managed services partners those manage their customers infrastructure and offer differentiated managed services to customers.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

With the Datacenter competency, you can differentiate yourself as a provider of Private Cloud, Management, and Virtualization Deployment service provider. Be known for transforming datacenters into flexible, scalable, and cost-effective solutions.

According to IDC, customers are increasingly investing in hybrid cloud solutions which provide agile, scalable, and on-demand infrastructure. By 2018, 80 percent of organizations will have a commitment to hybrid architecture. Microsoft has a comprehensive portfolio of products (including infrastructure, applications, management and security) across the datacenter and cloud. With your datacenter and cloud capabilities, you can offer hybrid and differentiated offerings to your customers.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

With the Data Analytics competency, you can differentiate as a specialist in business intelligence, big data, or advanced analytics, and help customers turn their data into actionable insights. Based on last 10 years’ Gartner Top 10 CIO Business and Technology Priorities report, Business Intelligence and Analytics is consistently rated as top technology investment categories by CIOs.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Investments in data platforms, especially in Big Data Infrastructure, will continue to grow due to increased adoption of IoT. According to IDC, Big Data and business analytics market will grow to USD203 billion by 2020, double the USD112 billion in 2015. More than 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies have the Microsoft cloud, which offers companies a fully integrated stack for any kind of data from on-premises, hybrid, or fully in the cloud. Its open cloud platform supports a wide variety of data management systems, including on-premises, cloud, relational DB, and a host of other options, such as third-party Hadoop solutions.

With the Data Platform competency, you can differentiate yourself as a specialist in SQL database, and big data for on-premises and hybrid environments. You can advise customers on their business needs, and architect, develop, and administer data platforms using a powerful, secure, and industry-recognized big data and analytics platform from Microsoft. This platform includes operational database management, data warehousing, and one of the fastest in-memory technologies: Redis Cache. With your help, your customers will be able to innovate, compete, and capture value by making data-driven decisions from insights extracted from data stored on a data platform.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Demonstrate your expertise as a premier Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner with the Cloud Business Applications competency. Distinguish your organization as a leader in delivering modern enterprise and business-ready apps and services that transform our customers' business processes. Qualify for additional benefits and resources to help meet your business needs and become eligible for priority Microsoft Referrals placement.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Dynamics 365 delivers the full spectrum of customer-engagement activities through five individual apps: Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation, and Marketing. These apps work seamlessly together to provide intelligent cloud services that offer personalized business processes.

The Cloud Customer Relationship Management competency recognizes partners who differentiate themselves as premiere industry providers of Dynamics 365 that deliver modern, intelligent experiences and services that connect all the data across an organization to help their customers make better, faster decisions and achieve optimal outcomes.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Dynamics Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions help customers make data-driven decisions with a complete set of tools that provide global visibility, scalability, and digital intelligence. The Dynamics ERP line of products allows organizations to anticipate and manage business needs with more intelligent processes and predictive guidance.

The ERP competency recognizes partners that develop and deploy Microsoft Dynamics solutions for customers' enterprise resource planning needs. The partners transform business by connecting people and processes, and making management and operations easier.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

GDPR and compliance are top concerns for enterprise customers all over the world. Partners who earn the Enterprise Mobility Management competency can stand out as expert in powerful, secure mobility management solutions for large businesses.

With IT Security spend predicted to reach USD170 billion worldwide by 2020, customers are looking for partners with the necessary expertise to implement technology to help them address current and emerging security threats and to meet compliance requirements.

Windows 10, as the most secure Microsoft OS ever, is seeing great momentum with customers from SMB to large enterprises, and is on track to have over a billion users. One of the cornerstones of the Secure Product Enterprise, Windows 10 plays a key role in helping customers meet the security challenges they face today. Partners with the Windows and Devices competency can promote themselves to as expert in helping customers benefit from the advanced security options only available in Windows 10.

In addition, the Windows and Devices competency enables our device builders, installers and sellers to showcase their specialization in providing advice and services to help customers make the most of their Windows 10 hardware investments.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Office 365 is the most secure cloud productivity solution with the most complete set of commercial-grade productivity offerings on the market today. With over 100 million monthly active Commercial users, Office 365 technologies span all productivity categories including Authoring, Mail, Integrated Teamwork, Social, Site and Content Management, Chat, Meeting and Voice and Analytics.

The Cloud Productivity competency enables partners the ability to demonstrate their technical capability in delivering Office 365 solutions across multiple or single productivity practice areas under Microsoft’s largest commercial cloud business.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

SMB customers continue to become more and more digital every day as a means to better serve their customers and lower costs. SMB customers are looking for trusted advisors who can help them with their move to the cloud.

The Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency is ideal for partners who provide cloud solutions to SMB customers across a number of Microsoft cloud services. Partners who provide cloud solutions and services on Microsoft 365, Azure, Enterprise Mobility and Security, Power BI, and Dynamics 365 Business Central can qualify for the competency.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

SharePoint empowers individuals and teams to intelligently discover, share, and collaborate on content from anywhere and on any device, on-premises or in the cloud, with Office 365 integration. With more than 200,000 organizations using SharePoint today and over 1 million developers that make up a USD10 billon solutions ecosystem, partners have multiple ways to build practice areas around SharePoint with its extensible design model.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

Skype for Business and Teams offer a comprehensive number of solutions and features that build on an enterprise-ready, unified communications platform enabling solutions such as unified chat and video meetings for today's teams. Build your Skype for Business or Teams practice and capitalize on the unique position of Microsoft in the market as a complete unified communications provider.

As a Communications competency partner, you can demonstrate your expertise in delivering and building solutions in both hybrid and cloud environments by taking advantage of the many features Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business have to offer.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

The need for effective collaboration is critical in today’s environment, which now sees employees working on twice the number of teams they did five years ago. Partners can build a collaboration practice addressing today’s collaboration needs using Exchange and Exchange Online with its ability to integrate with key technologies such as Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive for Business in both on-premises and in-the-cloud environments.

Partners who earn the Messaging competency demonstrate their technical capability with the Exchange and Exchange Online products in the delivery of email and collaboration solutions across a number of experiences, including phone, tablets, desktop, and the web.

Microsoft products associated with this competency

The Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solution provides the platform necessary for organizations to manage their strategic projects by providing project management, collaboration and portfolio management capabilities. With the latest release of the Project Family, the proven capabilities of Project Server are available as Project Online, a cloud service that offers organizations of all types and sizes increased agility with a smaller IT footprint. Project Online works with the SharePoint Online platform and enjoys the business benefits of Office 365, which modernizes productivity infrastructure without any compromise.

As a PPM competency partner, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your technical expertise in PPM industry solutions such as Financial Services, Professional Services, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Retail, Public Sector, and much more.